The News from Lake Street
by Bald Eagle
Summary: News 11/30 is in! Sorry I haven't posted in a few weeks! This is a fic from the radio show "A Prairie Home Compainion" by Garrison Keillor. Feedback please!
1. News 10/5/01

The News From Lake Street  
By Bald Eagle  
  
  


This is a fanfic from the radio show "A Prairie Home Companion" by Garrison Keillor, and by Minnesota Public radio. The last line of this News is taken from the segment "The News From Lake Wobegon," and my idea from this fanfic is from that segment.  


  
  


**News 10/5  
  
** It's been a quiet week out on Lake Street, out on the edge of the 'burg. The weather here has been unusually warm this week, as opposed to the cold snap we had during last week. It appears that God can't make up his mind. It's October now and He still hasn't decided to keep summer around, or go rolling into winter. It's like He has a switch and flicks around between 40º and 85º. This creates confusion on the street. No one uses calendars here, so people are becoming confused! The reason no one uses calendars is that nobody believes in them....I don't know why. What do I know? I just live here.   
This weekend is the annual Lake Street Fall Festival, where everyone on the street comes out and celebrates the arrival of Fall. It takes up a whole day and they have games, and pumpkin pies, and jumping into piles of leaves...all the usual Fall fare. A big event at this festival is the bake-off where all the women on the street bake a pie of any type, be it pumpkin, apple, Bebop-a-rebop rhubarb, anything. When it was time for the unveiling, someone tastes the pies, and you can tell by the look on his face whether it's noteworthy. If it's sour, he puckers his lips so much, it looks like his face will turn inside out, and the spectators laugh hysterically. It's just so amusing to watch. This event has become so popular, and so strict rules are set up. Usually the winner of this prized event is Mrs. Krebs.  
Mrs. Krebs lives in the first house on the street. She is one of those women who never give up on anything. This pie event is her only passion in life. She actually _practices_ for the event! I mean, come on! When she's bored, "Oh, I think I'm going to make a pie now." She takes great pride in this. Her oldest daughter Jane, 17 years old, scoffs at her mother for doing this. Jane lives in the modern times and thinks baking is old-fashioned. To her a home cooked meal consists of a Big Mac, fries and a coke. Last year when the festival came around, she went out, not to enjoy the festival, but went for a walk on a trail on Torne Mountain, alone, listening to her CD player, listening to her current favorite group, R&P, Rape and Pillage. She went walking, and began to think about why she didn't like the festival. She thought it was a place where people go to get drunk, and that the whole idea was foolish, ridiculous, absurd. She began to think of her school, which was my school as well, thinking about the upcoming Spirit Week and the homecoming dance, and who she was planning on going with.  
The high school's Spirit Week is a time when civilization ends and anarchy runs rampant through the halls. During the week, a pep rally occurs where all the sophomores, juniors, and seniors dig at the freshman. A game played during the rally is the scream off where each class screams and whoever screams the loudest wins. That is annoying. On Friday, at night, a big bonfire is torched off at a baseball field, where pyromaniac instincts run wild. On Saturday is the big homecoming dance. This is what Jane thinks about every year before the festival. Today she was out thinking this, and it was nearing dark before she arrived home, thoughts of school and R&P in her head. Her mother had told her about how she was ready for tomorrow's festivities. Jane went upstairs to her room, and feeling tired, changed, crawled into her bed, turned out her bedside light, and closed her eyes. She sighed.   
"Tomorrow," she said, sighing again. She drifted off into a deep sleep.  
  
That's the news from Lake Street, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.  
  
  
More to come next week....... 


	2. News 10/20/01

The News From Lake Street  
By Bald Eagle  


  
Note: This is a fanfic based on the radio show "A Prairie Home Companion: by Garrison Keillor. This is based on a segment from the show called "The News From Lake Wobegon." The last line of this News is taken from that segment.  
  
Other Note: It's been 2 weeks since my last post. Sorry, but I was preoccupied with more important matters. This News takes place from Columbus Day to now.  
  
  
  
**News 10/20**  
  
It's been a quiet week on Lake Street, out near the edge of the 'burg. It appeared that God again was undecided on what He wanted the weather to be. Early in the week it was cold, then cold and extremely windy in the middle of the week, then we got hit with a heat wave ending the week. Oy! People are getting sick here, some just dazed and confused people, just because we have some dazed and confused people all the time.   
It was a case of technology failure this week. I swear, people have become so dependent on technology that they begin to lose basic knowledge. When technology fails, mass hysteria sets in. It was Columbus Day, and I had to work at McDonnell's in the 'burg. Now the 'burg is a town that closely resembles a town out in the middle of Nebraska. This is a town that was _lifted_ from Nebraska and just plopped next to my town. Here everyone kind of speaks in a Southern slur-drawl, as if talking in a prolonged drunken state. Everyone in this town is related to one another, or so it seems, for when everyone's last name is Conklin, you kind of think so. You see a stark contrast between the 'burg and towns surrounding it. Here technology or even basic learning doesn't exist, whereas in the surrounding area, everyone has a kind of bead on the 21st century. People who have a slight amount of brain move away, and end up on the street. Our street is kind of a catchall. Our dazed and confused people earlier mentioned come from there. How a McDonalds ended up there I don't know. I mean, these people see road kill and call it dinner. They eat exotic food, such as squirrel, raccoon and chipmunk.  
Anyway, during this day, Columbus Day, it was the busiest day that I have ever seen in my life. At around 11 AM the people just flooded in and kept coming and kept coming. Everything was going well, and I was taking orders, and my backup person was chucking orders as fast as I took them. I note here, that because McDonalds is in the 'burg, all food that contains beef normally has instead raccoon, squirrel, chipmunk and various other fare. We were on a roll and people were singing praises to us for our quickness, and then just when things couldn't get any better, things took a sharp turn.  
At around 12, it was the busiest part of the day. Lines were almost out the door. Suddenly all the registers in the store crashed. All registers went down left and right. It was a massive system failure. What happened was that when a button was pressed, usually it would popup on the screen, but now it took at least a minute to come up. People were waiting for a long time. Error messages were popping up, mainly a "system not responding" error. When the order finally came up, the order would not go back to the kitchen, so we were yelling orders back and some were getting restless. Managers were running around to and fro all day. This failure lasted for 3 hours, from 12 to 3, when finally the system was temporarily fixed. Also there was a lull in the busy day. At around 4, the system plummeted again, and the crowd came flooding in. Other things that occurred that day was that when change had to be given, the change would not come up, so you had to rely on your head. Close to 5 before I left, it got so bad that my register told me to go to hell. Actually what happened was on the screen, if the register was closed, there was a red background saying register inactive. Here a black background and it said system closed. My register shut itself down. I left a few minutes later, leaving the mass failure behind, and found out that the failure wasn't completely fixed until around midweek.   
This week began the baseball playoffs. In New York, everyone's a Yankee fan, but not me. I have my hopes for the Mariners. That put aside, I discovered that people become mean, almost satanic, when encouraging the home team. I walked into school wielding the Mariners hat, and received many comments of which I won't say, laughter, and I was attacked! I mean, to them this was a direct attack on the home team and that I should be crushed quickly. I thought I saw fire and brimstone coming out of people's mouths! Ah well. It's only a game.   
So anyway, we see another classic example of technology's failure. Maybe we all should become people like the 'burg. How they've managed to live all these years remains a mystery, but I really do not want to become a society that eats raccoon or squirrel for a living. That's the news from Lake Street, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.  
  
  
More to come next week (hopefully).........


	3. News 11/3/01

The News from Lake Street  
By Bald Eagle  
  


Note: This is a fanfic of the radio show "A Prairie Home Companion" by Garrison Keillor. This fanfic is based on the segment "The News from Lake Wobegon" from that show. The last line in this News is taken from that segment.  
  
**News 11/3**  
  
It's been a quiet week on Lake Street, out near the edge of the 'burg. Last week up in the high school, it was a great moment for the class of 2003. It was the week that class rings were to be given out. Usually what would happen is that the rings would just be passed out to the students and that would be that. This year, however, the junior class (class of 2003) came up with the funds to have a Ring Ceremony, in which there is a ring breakfast and you get your ring that way. Never before has this been done, ever. The day that this occurred, there was a whole bunch of smiling faces, and the cafeteria was done up nice with blue and white ribbons, blue and white balloons, and plenty of bagels, muffins, and Sunny Delight to go 'round. To most, it was a fun way to get their rings. To some, it was a good way to get out of class for the first period of the day. I saw this as a way to get out of health class, for this breakfast was open to all juniors, regardless of whether you were ordering a ring or not. And so the music was playing, and all were taking, screaming, laughing. For most of the period, they called out the names of those who got rings. During this, there was that group of people who took balloons off the tables and popped them at random intervals. So each time a name was called, a pop occurred at random. They thought it was funny.....oh well.......  
The McDonalds of the 'burg lived through an interesting event. It was a day that no one was coming in at all, it was very quiet. Unusually quiet. This was not a typical Saturday. Weekends usually are busy, but not this particular day. A woman came in with something on her shoulder. It was an animal. It was a bird. A parrot to be exact. It was a beautiful looking thing. It was green and yellow, and some parts had red feathers, just gorgeous. I was admiring it. Next to her was a little kid. This was a type of kid that was rowdy, and was screaming at his mother, and flailing his arms about all over. Unfortunately, one of his hands hit the bird, and the bird went into flight.  
_Oh no..................._you can probably see where I am going with this.   
It wasn't a good bird and flew in the restaurant, oh no. It flew behind me into the kitchen. Pandemonium erupted. The scene became bedlam. The cooks were screaming and waving around in panic. Some were trying to catch the bird out of the air, but just before impact, the bird would lift up and just escape. It landed on the stove. Not good. Upon feeling the searing heat, it let out a high pitched squawk, and jolted back into the air. It must have been scared shitless for as it jolted, the bird fired a projectile (oh yes, _that_ type of projectile) into the opened and ready to be prepared bun of a Big Mac. Oh yes...........big and green, and white. Special sauce material there! Some groaned in disgust. And finally, it came back out into the front, and landed on the woman's shoulder. It looked calm and tranquil as if nothing ever happened. However, behind me, fierce shouts and curses..........................  
Gate Night and Halloween came and went. Gate Night didn't wreak as much damage to the street as normal. There's a bridge near my street, and every year that bridge is covered completely with toilet paper, but this year, there was only a few scraps. Mailboxes would normally be filled with shaving cream, but none were harmed. I would imagine that no one was feeling up to it, with the recent events before us. Halloween came around. On the street every year at Halloween, all the kids on the street (and myself) play kickball. It's just a tradition that came up out of nowhere. It's usually the last kickball game of the year. Usually my team doesn't win, but I play for the fun of it. We play to 15 runs, or till full dark, whichever comes first. Surprisingly it was a tense game, The lead switching back and forth. The game lasted for the better part of 2 hours. In the last inning of the game, it was 14 to 11, the other team, with a runner at second. A base hit would win the game for the other team. A good kicker, Jim, was up. It was two outs, and he kicked the ball high and far, and was veering foul, but I had just managed to catch up and catch the ball in foul territory. Then my team was up. The light was fading. My little sister, Erin, kicked a line drive. This kid has spunk for an 11 year old. It was caught then dropped. She ran to first. Her friend was up, Meg. She kicked a base hit. So now Erin and Meg are at 1st and 2nd. Meg's brother, Kevin, kicked the ball to the pitcher, and the pitcher threw it to try to peg for the out, missed. Bases loaded. Now it's my turn. I am not very good at all. Usually I foul out. It was tense. I told the pitcher Jim that if I kick a grand slam, we win. He pitched the first pitch. It connected and it was a high fly ball heading back, way back, gone! I had just kicked the game winning grand slam, my first ever. The other team was glum, but afterwards cam up to me and said great game. It was a great game. Full dark had arrived.   
_Celebrate we will.................................................._  
  
That's the news from Lake Street, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.  
  
More to come next week....................................................  



	4. News 11/30/01

The News From Lake Street  
By Bald Eagle  
  


NOTE: Sorry, I haven't been writing this for a few weeks, I've been busy. So here is the 4th post. This is based on the radio show "A Prairie Home Companion" by Garrison Keillor and MPR. This is also based on the segment "The News from Lake Wobegon" from that show. The last line of this News is taken from the show.   
  
**News 11/30  
  
** It's been a quiet week out on Lake Street, out near the edge of the 'burg. This week the high school puts out its Fall Drama, "Good Night Ladies," a comedy about a guy who loves, adores spiders and is deathly afraid of women. He received this fear at the age of 13, when he saw a female spider eat the male. During the show, its funny for that this guy is surrounded by beautiful women on all sides. It's great. Opening night was last night, and I heard it through the grapevine that it was a great show. I find theater very enjoyable. It allows fellow students to get out and be what they want in the form of acting. There is no normal. I've participated in school musicals before and found it to be loads of fun. Always on the performances, the stage crew are either running around frantic, watching to make sure a backdrop doesn't fall on some poor sap's head, hanging in the wings, or making out in a dark corner of the wings, and believe me, some of these things become pretty involved.   
After a performance usually there's the cast party (or parties) which usually involves some drink, some hysterics, some more involved displays of affection, and usually goes very late into the night. The jokes fly and the music's playing and everyone has a great time. Some end with some sort of hangover the next day, but that's fine, that's all good. All in good fun........  
Thanksgiving was fun out here on the street. It's a day of feast for all. As you drive up the street, the smells of baking pies and Thanksgiving meals invades the nostrils, and it gives you a sense of peace, which usually responds by your stomach, stomach saying, "Hey, you. Pay attention. You smell all this food, good. Feed me! You're not here to improve the landscape." One unusual incident happened last weekend. In the house of the Krebs', Mrs. Krebs, who had her heart set on making a grand Thanksgiving meal, had a rather strange incident. She had begun to roast the turkey and she had to run out on an errand. Jane, her oldest daughter, was in the bathroom (which is like her second home) fixing herself up for the day, and was in the process of setting her hair straight. Now she had a little brother (oh yeah). His name was Greg, aged 10, and he was quite the practical joker. He had something rolled up his sleeve for his sister, today on this day of thanks. She had gone out of the bathroom to get a hair scrunchie from her room. He began to make his move.  
He only had a few seconds. He went in and grabbed the hair spray off the sink and made off with it. He was going to hide it somewhere. He ran down the stairs, a big grin on his face. Jane entered the bathroom again, humming her favorite R&P song, and then noticed the terrible atrocity. She instantly knew who it was. She roared down the stairs like a bull, hell-bent on turning her brother into unrecognizable scarlet splatters. He had to hide the hair spray quickly or he was in for it. He looked around in the kitchen and saw what he thought was the best place--the stove. She'd never look in there. He threw it in the stove with the roasting turkey and ran outside. Jane heard the door slam and ran out the door. Both didn't go too far when they heard the explosion. The house became illuminated with light, and quickly faded away. Both turned and Greg's jaw dropped. Jane's mind was reeling: _oh no. Oh no he didn't_. But the look on Greg's face said it all. _Ohhhhhhhhh....he did. _A new wave of adrenaline rushed over her and now she was going to murder him. She was ready to move when they both saw Mrs. Krebs pull up. And then Greg said something he never said before...  
  
"_Oh shit."  
  
_ When Mrs. Krebs saw what occurred, the reality didn't hit her at first. In fact, the first thing she thought was, _contraception. Why didn't I use contraception? _  
  
That's the news from Lake Street, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.   
  
More to come soon.....................................


End file.
